A hand-drawn Max Beckmann walks through his collection of postcards, occasionally changing outfits or morphing into different objects. The hummed song to which he walks is the well-known German nursery song Hänschen Klein (Little Hans, 1899, by Franz Widedemann) which tells of a boy who leaves his sorrowing mother to go out into the world with only his hat and stick, eventually returning as an almost unrecognizable man.

Commissioned for Max Beckmann: Departure at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, Germany, November 25 – March 12, 2023.